Plans to Utilize Closed Schools

[Financial News] The government, local governments, and education offices are gathering to prepare plans to utilize the increasing number of closed schools due to the declining school-age population as facilities needed by the community and to improve systems that act as obstacles to their use.
The Ministry of Education announced on the 24th that it will hold a meeting on the utilization of closed schools with officials from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, education offices, and local governments on the 25th. The Ministry of Education explained, "The on-site opinions and suggestions collected at this meeting will be reflected in the 'Support Plan for Activation of Closed Schools Utilization' scheduled to be announced in September."
According to the Ministry of Education, 41 schools nationwide were closed in 2022, and 26 in 2023, 33 in 2024, and 53 in 2025. The obstacles to utilizing these closed schools include building aging, the cost burden of purchase and maintenance, and various regulations. This meeting will focus on three areas to resolve these issues: support for utilization, system improvement, and activation inducement.
First, in the support for utilization area, discussions will be held on administrative and financial support measures such as the Ministry of Education's school complex facility competition project, linking with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety's local extinction response fund to alleviate the financial burden on local governments, and establishing a systematic management system for closed school properties.
In the system improvement area, efforts will be made to expand resident participation in preparing plans for utilizing closed schools, strengthen the cooperation system between education offices and local governments, and seek directions for revising related regulations.
Finally, in the activation inducement area, education offices and local governments will collaborate to discover and promote closed school utilization projects, and the central government will discuss effective measures to spread successful cases of closed school utilization.
Jeon Jin-seok, Director of Education Autonomy and Safety Policy at the Ministry of Education, stated, "Closed schools are not only shared assets of provincial and municipal education offices but also important assets for the community," adding, "We will strive for the activation of closed school utilization through close cooperation between the central and local governments so that closed schools can be reborn as spaces that play a central role in the community." 

monarch@fnnews.com Kim Man-gi Reporter